Unless otherwise specified,
all figures are identified in a clockwise fashion.

Cover. Rather than give spoilers for various characters here,
I’m going to defer identifying them.

Page 1.Panel 1.This is Thomas
Carnacki. Carnacki was
created by William Hope Hodgson and appeared in six stories in British
magazines from 1910 to 1912, beginning with “The Gateway of the Monster” (The
Idler, Jan. 1910). Thomas Carnacki was the second
major Occult Detective in detective/horror fiction. Carnacki
is a “Psychic Investigator” who uses both scientific equipment and the
traditional ghost-breaking paraphernalia to combat the psychic forces and the
“Outer Monsters” which threaten our world.

I’m not sure what the
mummified figures are a reference to–none of Carnacki’s
stories (that I’m aware of) have him facing off against mummies.

Panel 2. A
“Profess-house” was originally a local shelter for Jesuits who had bound
themselves by the four vows of chastity, poverty, obedience, and special
obedience to the Pope. ("Profess" is used in this sense as being
another word for "vow"). Occultist Aleister
Crowley (1875–1947)had different meanings and purposes for the Profess-house. For Crowley, the Profess-house
was a place where "members may conceal themselves in order to pursue the
Great Work without hindrance" and which are "temples of true worship,
specially consecrated by Nature to bring out of a man all that is best in
him." Longer Crowley
quotes on Profess-houses can be found here.

Panel 3. “Oliver” is a reference to Oliver Haddo, who appeared in W. Somerset Maugham’s novel The Magician
(1907). Haddo was based on Aleister
Crowley, whom Maugham disliked, and The Magician is about an occult
attempt to create life. Haddo is mentioned on Pages
25 & 26 of Black Dossier.

As seen in Black Dossier,
a number of historical figures are replaced in the world of League by
their fictional counterparts or models, so that in the world of League
there was no Adolph Hitler, there was Adenoid Hynkel
(from Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator). In the world of League
there was no Crowley,
there was Oliver Haddo.

“Iliel”
is a reference to Crowley’s
novel The
Moonchild (1917). In the novel Lisa la Giuffria
is used by a group of white magicians in a magic war with a group of black
magicians. La Giuffria is given

a
new name, a mystic name, engraved upon a moonstone, set in a silver ring which
she put upon her finger. This name was Iliel. It had
been chosen on account of its sympathy of number to the moon; for the name is
Hebrew, in which language its characters have the value of 81, the square of 9,
the sacred number of the moon. But other considerations helped to determine the
choice of this name. The letter L in Hebrew refers to Libra, the sign under
which she had been born; and it was surrounded with two letters, I, to indicate
her envelopment by the force of creation and chastity which the wise men of old
hid in that hieroglyph.

The
final "EL" signified the divinity of her new being; for this is the
Hebrew word for God, and is commonly attached by the sages to divers roots, to
imply that these ideas have been manifested in individuals of angelic nature.

Panel 4. The four figures facing the reader are (beginning
with the tallest) Cyril Grey, Sister Cybele, Simon Iff,
and Iliel.

Cyril Grey, the “Frater Cyril” mentioned in the dialogue, appears in The
Moonchild. In the novel Grey is one of white magicians. Grey is usually
interpreted as being Crowley’s
version of his younger self.

Sister Cybele, the “Soror Cybele” mentioned the dialogue, appears in The
Moonchild. In the novel she is one of the white magicians. Cybele is
usually interpreted as having been based on Leila Waddell (1880-1932), Crowley’s personal muse.

Cybele was an Earth Mother
goddess among the Phrygians, Greeks, and Romans. (Wikipedia
entry).

Simon Iff,
the “Frater Simon” mentioned in the dialogue, appears
in The Moonchild as well as in twenty short stories appearing in three
collections in 1917 and 1918. Iff is a kind of Occult
Detective.

Iff’s appearance here is similar to Aleister
Crowley when he was in his sixties.

Iliel, in The Moonchild, was modeled on Mary d’EsteSturges, one of Crowley’s lovers before
World War One.

The robes that the cultists
wore are similar to those worn by members of the Golden Dawn, the cult Aleister Crowley founded.

Panel 6. “InvisibleCollege” is a 17th
century phrase for an informal, hidden, and unpublicized group of scholars. The
first real “Invisible College,” and the one to which the phrase is usually
attached, was a group of Royal Society scientists, including Robert Boyle,
Robert Hooke, and Christopher Wren. In modern usage “invisible college” has
expanded to encompass everything from scientists to magicians.

“A moon-stone. A moon-child.”
In The Moonchild the titular child will be a kind of occult messiah, a
child who is possessed with the soul of an astral spirit.

Panel 7. This is Oliver Haddo. He
has a certain visual similarity to Aleister Crowley:

Page 2. For the identity of the woman, see Page 4, Panel 2.

“What Keeps Mankind Alive” is
the title of a song in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt
Weill’s musical The Threepenny Opera (1928). The
Threepenny Opera, about the brutality of modern
capitalist life, is the thematic basis for much of Century: 1910, as
will be seen, and the lyrics of “What Keeps Mankind Alive” is a direct
statement of one of these themes:

You gentlemen who think you have a mission

To purge us of the seven deadly sins

Should first sort out the basic food position

Then start your preaching, that’s where it begins

You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as
well

Should learn, for once, the way the world is run

However much you twist or whatever lies that you tell

Food is the first thing, morals follow on

So first make sure that those who are now starving

Get proper helpings when we all start carving

What keeps mankind alive?

What keeps mankind alive?

The fact that millions are daily tortured

Stifled, punished, silenced and oppressed

Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance

In keeping its humanity repressed

And for once you must try not to shriek the facts

Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.

Page 3. Panel 5. The stone with the calculations on
it appears in Jules Verne’s L'ÎleMystérieuse (English translation: The Mysterious
Island) (1874). The Mysterious Island is best-known as the sequel to
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and describes the post-20,000 Leagues
behavior and ultimate fate of Captain Nemo. In The
Mysterious Island the castaways have to calculate the height of a high
granite wall:

The
measurements were made with the pole and resulted in determining the distances
from the stake to the foot of the pole and the base of the wall to be 15 and
500 feet respectively. The engineer and Herbert then returned to the Chimneys,
where the former, using a flat stone and a bit of shell to figure with,
determined the height of the wall to be 333.33 feet.

Panel 6. The older gentleman is Ishmael, originally from
Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851). As shown in earlier volumes of League,
after the events of Moby Dick Ishmael became one of Captain Nemo’s crewmen.

Page 4.Panel 1.
The man in the bed is Captain Nemo. In The
Mysterious IslandNemo was supposed to have died
of exhaustion, but as the events of earlier volumes of League showed he
survived until 1910.

The man kneeling by Nemo’s bed is Broad Arrow Jack. Jack was originally created
by E. Harcourt Burrage and appeared in the penny
dreadful Broad Arrow Jack (1886) but as shown in earlier volumes of League,
after the events of Broad Arrow JackJack
became one of Captain Nemo’s crewmen.

When Nemo
first appears in The Mysterious Island it is on his deathbed in The
Nautilus. The scene is described in this way:

A
vast saloon, a sort of museum, in which were arranged all the treasures of the
mineral world, works of art, marvels of industry, appeared before the eyes of
the colonists, who seemed to be transported to the land of dreams.

Extended
upon a rich divan they saw a man, who seemed unaware of their presence.

This panel, also in The
Nautilus, is likely a reference to that particular scene.

Panel 2. The dialogue here and for the rest of this sequence is
in Punjabi. The dialogue here reads “Hello, Father. How are you this evening?”
The speaker, the girl we’ve been following for the past three pages, is JanniDakkar, the daughter of
Captain Nemo, whose real name is Prince Dakkar. Janni was referred to by
name in League v2 and mentioned in Black Dossier, although she is
Moore’s
creation–Verne’s Nemo had no children.

According to The
Mysterious Island Captain Nemo, a.k.a. Prince Dakkar, was a prince of “Bundelkund,”
or Bundelkhand, an area in central India. Punjab
is on the northwest border of India.
Most people in Bundelkhand speak Bundeli,
but there’s certainly no reason why Nemo’s wife
couldn’t be Punjabi.

Panel 3. Translated dialogue: “I am no better, no worse. I
wanted to know if you had reconsidered.”

Page 5. Panel 1.
Translated dialogue: “You disobey me. You disobey your own father. Do not
forget that you are my daughter.”

Panel 2. Translated dialogue: “No. Nor do I forget the years
for which you ignored me. You ignored me because you wanted a son.”

Panel 3. Translated dialogue: “Of course I wanted a son, but
all I got was you! Who else but you can carry on my work, and my name?”

Panel 4. Translated dialogue: “What kind of name is ‘Nobody’?
What kind of work is piracy? I am not like you, a fanatic. You can go to Hell.”

Panel 5. Translated dialogue: “You dare talk to me like that?
I should have you whipped! I–“

Page 8. Panel 1. Presumably
the painting and the figure (a Grey?) under glass are references to Carnacki stories, but I’m not sure which ones they could
be.

Panel 4. The other man is E. W. Hornung’s
master thief A.J. Raffles, who set the standard for the English gentleman
criminal for a half-century. Raffles appeared in a number of short stories and
four short story collections and novels from 1898 to 1909, beginning with “The Ides of March” (Cassell’s Magazine, June 1898). He is a
member of Society and steals from his comrades and does so with style.

Page 9. Panel 3.
“I was blackmailed into this when they uncovered my burglary career.”

In
Raffles’ first seven stories (collected in The Amateur Cracksman
(1899)) Raffles’ criminal life is a secret from the world, but in the eighth
story (also collected in The Amateur Cracksman) Raffles is exposed. In
the later stories Raffles continues to steal but is disgraced, and in the last
short story, “The Last Word” (1905), Raffles atones for his crime by dying
heroically in the Boer War.

That wasn’t the last Raffles
appearance written by Hornung, however. The public
demand for Raffles was so great that Hornung brought
Raffles back (as Hornung’s brother-in-law Arthur
Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes) for one last novel, Mr. Justice
Raffles (1909), set before Raffles’ disgrace. Perhaps in the world of League
Raffles’ death during the Boer War was a sham? After all, we only know of it
because Raffles’ sidekick/toady, the craven lickspittle Bunny Manders, says that Raffles died–and Manders
is hardly a reliable narrator.

“How would a drop of the 1736
Amontillado suit you?”

This is a reference to the
Edgar Allan Poe story “The
Cask of Amontillado,” which if you haven’t read by now, STOP READING THIS
AND READ THAT INSTEAD. CLICK ON THE LINK. DO IT NOW. (I’m not sure if the 1736
date is a reference to anything in paritcular).

The skull in the lower left
is presumably the skull of a Cyclops. Not sure if it has any significance
beyond that.

The mermaid-like creature may
be a Water Baby, one of the aquatic faerie types from Charles Kingsley’s The
Water Babies (1862-1863).

Panel 3. “An Old Boy from my Cheyne
Walk Club”

“Old Boy” in this case is a
British phrase for a male alumni of a school. “Cheyne
Walk” is a reference to the streeet, Cheyne Walk, at which Carnacki
lives in Chelsea.
Presumably his club is on the same street.

Page 11. Panel 1.
“Did I every tell you about how I helped found London? ‘New Troy’ we called it then...”

As with all of Orlando’s boasts, this
one is mostly true and is briefly shown in Black Dossier.

Orlando is holding a bottle of absinthe in his right hand,
and in his left he holds a spoon with two cubes of sugar–absinthe is traditionally
drunk by pouring the absinthe through the sugar cubes. The label on the bottle,
“green fairy,” is a reference to the traditional French name for absinthe,
"la féeverte"
(literally, “the Green Fairy”). Of course, in the world of League, the
brand of absinthe known as “Green Fairy” might actually be made from green
fairies.

Panel 2. “Could it have anything to do with the imminent
Coronation?”

In reality, George Frederick
Ernest Albert was crowned King-Emperor George V of the United Kingdom on June
22, 1911, following the death of George’s father, King Edward VII. In the world
of League a number of historical figures are replaced by figures from
fiction, so it is unclear who (or what) was coronated
on in 1910 in the world of League.

Panel 3. “Presumably not the dreadful new aeon
of George the Fifth?”

As I said, it’s not clear who
or what was coronated in 1910 in the world of League.
It may have been George Frederick Ernest Albert, or may have been someone else
entirely who happened to be named George.

“I know Military Intelligence
are worried about some anti-royal plot. Also, Halley’s Comet is passing.”

“Mina, come on. You’re not
superstitious, surely?”

Halley’s Comet did indeed
pass Earth in April, 1910, and tradition held that its appearance was
ominous–it appeared in 1066 and was popularly supposed to have been an omen for
the death of King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings–but I’m unaware of any
real-life anti-royal plot which took place around the time of the Coronation.

Page 12. Panel 1.
In the upper left of this panel are three sailors. I don’t know who the
buck-toothed sailor on the left is. The sailor in the middle is E.C. Segar’s
Popeye, and I believe the sailor next to him is C.J. CutcliffeHyne’s Captain Kettle, who appeared in stories,
novels (like A Master of
Fortune), and films from 1895 to 1920. Kettle is a short, cigar
smoking, red bearded, pugnacious, brutal sailor–a perfect fit for this milieu.

Panel 7. “Miller’s Court to Mitre Square.”

#13, Miller’s Court, Dorset Street, London’s
East End, was where Mary Jane Kelly was
murdered by Jack the Ripper on November 9, 1888. Mitre
Square, City of London,
was where Catherine Eddowes was murdered by Jack the
Ripper on September 30, 1888.

This is a reference to Arthur
Conan Doyle’s abrasive explorer Professor Challenger, who appeared in five
novels from 1912 to 1929, beginning with “The
Lost World” (The Strand Magazine, Apr. 1912). At the beginning of
“The Lost World” Challenger has recently returned from a South American
expedition on which he discovered dinosaurs.

Panel 3. “Lucky ‘eather to keep the
Comet away!”

In English folklore heather
has good luck properties.

“It said old Cuff had died.”

“What, the Copper?”

This is a reference to
Sergeant Cuff, who appeared in Wilkie Collins’ The
Moonstone (1868). The Moonstone was one of the two or three most
important detective novels of the 19th century, and Cuff was
influential on the development of the Great Detective archeype.

In The Moonstone Cuff
is described as a “grizzled, elderly man,” so he would have been ancient by the
time of Century: 1910.

Panel 4. “Wotcher, Suki. How’s trade, dear?”

“Brisk. Hardly stood up all
night.”

In Threepenny
Opera, which is set in London,
Suky Tawdry is one of the prostitutes.

Panel 5. “Building bigger ships means war’s coming.”

From 1906 to 1914 Great Britain and Germany competed to build the
biggest and best navy in the world, in what is known as the “Anglo-German Naval
Race.”

“Remember the Titan”

The Titan appeared in
Morgan Robertson’s Futility (1898), a story about a Titanic-like
liner, the Titan, which hits an iceberg and sinks in a strange
prediction of the Titanic’s sinking.

“Stuttering ‘alf-wit more like”

King George VI, George V’s
son, had a stutter.

Panel 6. “About that 14th Earl of Gurney, his
speech in the House of Lords?”

This is a reference to the
film The Ruling Class (1972), written by Peter Barnes and directed by
Jules Buck and Jack Hawkins. In the film Jack Gurney, the 14th Earl
of Gurney, is a paranoid schizophrenic who believes that he is God. At one
point in the film Gurney delivers a speech to the House of Lords in which he
suggests bringing back hangings as a way to return law and order to England.

“It’s them public schools,
like Greyfriars”

Greyfriars was the public school created by Charles Hamilton and
appearing in hundreds of short stories, novels, and radio and television
programs from 1908 to at least 1982. Greyfriars is an
English public school whose students include Billy Bunter and the Famous Five.

As seen in Black Dossier,
in the world of League Greyfriars produced
some of England’s
greatest and most horrible men.

The “Cuttlefish Hotel” is one
of the locations in which the events of Threepenny
Opera take place.

Quong Lee was created by Thomas Burke and appeared in a
number of short stories and three collections of short stories and poetry from
1916 to 1931, beginning with Limehouse
Nights (1916). Quong Lee is an old, sad, wise
Chinese man living in Limehouse, the Chinese section
of London. He
is an astute observer of the human condition and sees many strange, touching,
and unusual occurrences from the window of his tea shop. Quong
Lee appeared in League v1.

Panel 9. “It brought down the Barnes Bridge Martian!”

This event can be seen in League
v2.

Page 14. Panel 1.
This fun-fair exhibition is the cod-Nautilus which can be seen on page
107 of Black Dossier.

Panel 4. The poster, referring to “Mr. J Stark” and “Lewis,”
is similar to the theatrical posters seen on Page 21 of Black Dossier. “Mr.
J. Stark” is a reference to Janus Stark, who appeared in the British comics Smash
and Valiant (1969–1975). Stark is a Victorian superhero with very
rubbery bones, which gives him abilities he uses to fight crime. “Lewis” is a
reference to Al Lewis, of Lewis and Clark, a pair of vaudevillian comedians in
Neil Simon’s play The Sunshine Boys (1972).

Page 15. Panel 8.
“Military coup in Ruritania” is a reference to Ruritania, the small Eastern European kingdom which
appeared in Anthony Hope Hawkins’ The Prisoner of Zenda
(1894) and Rupert of Hentzau (1898).

I’m not sure what the
headline below it, of which only “–rinian -ssa” is visible, might be a reference to. Someone being
assassinated?

Page 16. Panel 1.
The tentacle at the bottom center of the panel is a nice touch.

Panel 2. “The Merlin Society” is Moore’s own creation, I believe.

Panel 5. This outfit–evening-wear and domino mask–was
standard attire for Gentleman Thieves of the 1900s, 1910s, and 1920s, many of
whom were Raffles imitations.

Page 17. Panel 1.
Presumably most if not everyone here are figures out of Victorian &
Edwardian occult fiction. Several are named in Panels 2 and 3, so I’ll refrain
from naming them here. Those which aren’t:

•the Asian figure peering over the shoulder of one of
the card-players. Perhaps he is J.U. Giesy’s
Semi-Dual, an occult detective who appeared in thirty-two stories in various
pulps from 1912 to 1934.

•the dwarf/Little Person using canes. That might be
Victor Rousseau’s Ivan Brodsky, an occult detective who appeared in eleven
stories in Weird Tales in 1926 & 1927.

•the nude male with the horns leaning against the
pillar. Pan, possibly, a reference to Arthur Machen’s
“The Great God Pan”?

•the man in formal wear playing the drums.

•the skull-faced figure. Death Itself?

•the figure on the far right, wearing a fur coat.

Panel
2. “That’s Dyson and Phillips” is a
reference to Arthur Machen’s Dyson and Charles
Phillips, who appeared in a number of stories and novels, beginning with “The
Inmost Light” (The
Great God Pan, 1894). Dyson and Phillips are a pair of Occult
Detectives, although they usually explain the occult crimes which have occurred
rather than prevent them from occuring.

Presumably Dyson & Phillips are
the pair playing cards in Panel 1.

“Dear
Old Johnny Silence” is a reference to Algernon Blackwood’s Doctor Silence, who
appeared in a number of stories which were collected in John Silence
(1908). Doctor Silence was the first significant Occult Detective of
occult/detective fiction. Silence uses his psychic abilities to fight various
occult evils, including astral werewolves and fire elementals.

I would guess that Silence is the
cigar-smoking figure, center-right, in Panel 1.

“Dr. Taverner” is a reference to Dion
Fortune’s Dr. Taverner, who appeared in twelve
stories and one short story collection from 1922 to 1926, beginning with
“Blood-Lust” (The Royal Magazine, May 1922). Dr. Taverner
is a Theosophist Occult Detective who uses his ability to tap the “Akashic Records…the subconscious mind of the human race” to
help balance individuals’ karmic debts and to fight against the evil “Black
Lodge.”

“Prince
Zaleski” is a reference to M.P. Shiel’s
Prince Zaleski, who appeared in three stories in Prince
Zaleski (1895). Zaleski
is a kind of Armchair Detective whose Decadent langour
and belief in his own superiority lead him to rarely leave his home. He also
solves crimes.

Zaleski,
and Dr. Taverner, can be seen in the center of Panel
1.

Panel
4. The painting on the right is of
the Golliwog, who appeared in Black Dossier.

Page
18. Panel 3. “I think a former doctor of mine used to come here”

This is
probably a reference to Doctor van Helsing, from the
Stephen Sommers film Van Helsing
(2004). Doctor van Helsing is a monster hunter who
fights Edward Hyde and vampires in Transylvania.

Panel
5. “Mr. Zanoni,
isn’t it?” is a reference to Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni
(1842). Zanoni is an immortal, nasty Chaldean sorcerer who is the last of the Rosicrucians.

“Fortunio’s entourage” is a reference to Theophile
Gautier’s Fortunio (1837), in which the
gorgeous, aloof, amoral, and deadly aesthete Fortunio
is fruitlessly pursued by the beautiful courtesan Musidora,
who fails to win his love because Fortunio’s tastes
are too refined for drab Europe.

“Rite
of Smarra” is a reference to Charles Nodier’s “Smarra, ou Les Démons de la Nuit” (English translation: “Smarra,
or the Demons of the Night”) (1821). “Smarra” is a
concentric series of nightmares within nightmares about, among other things,
the demon Smarra. (“Smarra”
is a great early horror story and well worth searching out).

Panel
7. “The Sicilian, the Count von Ost” is a reference to Friedrich von Schiller and appeared
in “DerGeisterseher”(English
translation: “The Ghost-Seer” (1787-1789). “The Ghost-Seer” is about a German
prince, the Graf von O, who is threatened by, among others, an occult Sicilian
swindler modeled on Cagliostro.

Panel
9. The “magical war” Zanoni is referring to takes place in The Moonchild.
Presumably Zanoni was on the side of the white
magicians who Haddo and Iff
warred on.

Page
19. Panel 1. “Didn’t he die in Staffordshire a couple of years
ago?”

In the
finale of The Magician, the novel Haddo
originally appeared in, Haddo dies in a fire at his
Staffordshire estate, which Black Magician dates to 1908.

“Reportedly,
Haddo was attempting to make homunculi.”

Broadly,
the traditional occult/magical definition of a homunculus (plural: homunculi)
was a small, artificial man. The Wikipedia
entry gives a number of early examples of it. In Crowley’s Moonchild we find this:

"They started in paraphysical
ways; that is, they repudiated natural generation altogether. They made figures
of brass, and tried to induce souls to indwell them. In some accounts we read
that they succeeded; Friar Bacon was credited with one such Homunculus; so was Albertus Magnus, and, I think, Paracelsus.

"He had, at least, a devil in his long sword 'which
taught him all the cunning pranks of past and future mountebanks,' or Samuel
Butler, first of that dynasty, has lied.

"But other magicians sought to make this
Homunculus in a way closer to nature. In all these cases they had held that
environment could be modified at will by the application of telesmata
or sympathetic figures. For example, a nine-pointed star would attract the
influence which they called Luna -- not meaning the actual moon, but an idea
similar to the poets' ideas of her. By surrounding an object with such stars,
with similarly-disposed herbs, perfumes, metals, talismans, and so on, and by
carefully keeping off all other influences by parallel methods, they hoped to
invest the original object so treated with the Lunar qualities, and no others.
(I am giving the briefest outline of an immense subject.) Now then they
proceeded to try to make the Homunculus on very curious lines.

"Man, said they, is merely a fertilized ovum
properly incubated. Heredity is there even at first, of course, but in a feeble
degree. Anyhow, they could arrange any desired environment from the beginning,
if they could only manage to nourish the embryo in some artificial way --
incubate it, in fact, as is done with chickens to-day. Furthermore, and this is
the crucial point, they thought that by performing this [108] experiment in a
specially prepared place, a place protected magically against all incompatible
forces, and by invoking into that place some one force which they desired, some
tremendously powerful being, angel or archangel -- and they had conjurations
which they thought capable of doing this -- that they would be able to cause
the incarnation of beings of infinite knowledge and power, who would be able to
bring the whole world into Light and Truth.

"I may conclude this little sketch by saying that
the idea has been almost universal in one form or another; the wish has always
been for a Messiah or Superman, and the method some attempt to produce man by
artificial or at least abnormal means. Greek and Roman legend is full of
stories in which this mystery is thinly veiled; they seem mostly to derive from
Asia Minor and Syria.
Here exogamic principles have been pushed to an amusing extreme. I need not
remind you of the Persian formula for producing a magician, or of the Egyptian
routine in the matter of Pharaoh, or of the Mohammedan device for inaugurating
the Millenium. I did remind Brother Cyril, by the
way, of this last point, and he did need it; but it did him no good, for here
we are at the threshold of a Great Experiment on yet another false track!"

Page
20. Panel 1. As can be seen on page 105 of Black Dossier,
the “Kraken” section of the Nautilus II separates from the “Whale Hull.”
The Kraken section is what is shown here.

Page
21. Panel 1. Translated dialogue: “Ishmael...”

The
painting is of the original, 1865 Nautilus (of 20,000 Leagues Under
the Sea) not the more technologically-advanced Nautilus II of 1878
(and MysteriousIsland).

Panel
5. Presumably the painting in the
upper right is of Nemo’s wife, not his daughter.

Page
22. Panel 1. I’m guessing that Kevin O’Neill snuck in a few
references here, but they elude me.

Page
23. Panel 1. “There were Cathys...there
were Marys...left for constables to find.”

“Cathys” being Catherine Eddowes
and “Marys” being Mary Ann Nichols and Mary Jane
Kelly, three of the five victims of Jack the Ripper.

Panel
2. “While I sailed for Buenos Aires”

Some Ripperologists do believe that there is a link between Jack
the Ripper and Buenos Aires,
explained here.
But the Argentine Ripper suspect went from Buenos Aires to Whitechapel,
rather than vice-versa.

The
stylish woman is Lulu. Lulu was created by Frank Wedekind
and appeared in the plays Earth Spirit (1895) and Pandora’s Box
(1904). Lulu is a beautiful German woman who uses sex to rise in German society
but is later reduced to prostitution and is eventually killed by Jack the
Ripper. Lulu here is modeled on Louise Brooks’ portrayal of Lulu in the 1929
film of Pandora’s Box. The scene in the film in which Lulu meets Jack is
similar in composition to this panel.

Panel
3. The fact that the man continues to
sing while talking with Lulu is a tradition of musical theater: when a
character sings to the audience, none of the other characters notice it.

Panel
6. The woman weeping over the photo
of Lulu is the Countess Geschwitz, who in Pandora’s
Box is in love with Lulu but is rejected by her.

Page
24. Panel 7. Threepenny Opera
is loosely based on John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera (1728). In Beggar’s
Opera the male lead is Macheath, a famous
highwayman. In Threepenny OperaMacheath is now a brutal anti-hero known as “Mack the
Knife.” Brecht made the association between Macheath
and Jack the Ripper, but giving Macheath the first
name “Jack” is Moore’s
addition.

“Jack Macheath is back in town” is a reference to the lyrics of Macheath’s song “Mack the Knife,” later made famous by
Frank Sinatra & Bobby Darin, which has a similar line.

I’d
recommend reading the rest of Century 1910, then returning here and
reading these lyrics again to see how they relate to the events of the story.

Suki’s
staring at us while she sings is in line with Bertholt
Brecht’s verfremdungseffekt, or “distancing
effect,” which in Brechtian theater is a way to
prevent the audience from becoming passive spectators of a play. The theory is
that emotional identification in a play leads to the audience losing its
critical faculties, so the Brechtianverfremdungseffekt involves things like having
characters speak directly to the audience, as Suki is
doing here.

Page
28. Panel 1. Back at the BritishMuseum.
Moving clockwise:

•the statue, I think, is of Gulliver.

•I’m not sure what the giant skull is.

•The elephant-headed figure may be a reference to Joseph Merrick
(1862-1890), popularly known as “The Elephant Man,” or it may be the stuffed
and mounted body of Babar, from the de Brunhoff’s
children’s books. Babar was mentioned in League v2n4.

•On the far right of the panel is a face-hugging Alien,
from the Alien franchise. Not sure what it is attached to, though.

•In the coffin is a staked vampire, which might be Moore’s nod to those who
wished to see Dracula in League.

Page
29. Panel 1. I know I’ve seen the globe before, but I’m drawing a
blank on it.

Panel
3. The jar in the left contains, I
would hazard, a Martian. The jar on the right contains, alas, poor Mr. Frog,
originally from Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows (1908) but
latterly seen in League v2, as one of Moreau’s menagerie.

Panel
4. The painting is of Moby Dick, the
great white whale from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851).

Page
29. Panel 1. “It’s a scrying glass, a
black mirror made of obsidian. It’s from the Museum’s collection. It used to
belong to Gloriana’s alchemist, John Subtle.”

“Oh, honestly! Subtle was just a
code-name that Queen Glory gave to Duke Prospero of Milan.”

John
Dee (1527-1608/9), alchemist and advistor to Queen
Elizabeth I, legendarily had a scrying glass, made of
either quartz or obsidian, which he used to gain visions. (Said scrying glass is, or at least was until recently, on
display in the BritishMuseum). But, as
established in Black Dossier, in the world of the League a number of men
and women have been replaced by similar figures out of fiction. In the world of
the League there was no Queen Elizabeth I, there was Queen Gloriana,
a fairy queen and the Faerie Queen. Similarly, in the world of the
League there was no John Dee, there was John Subtle, originally from Ben
Jonson’s play The Alchemist (1610). In the play Subtle is a rogue who
poses as an alchemist. But, further, as seen in Black Dossier Duke
Prospero of Milan,
the wizard from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611), was once known as John
Subtle.

I don’t
know what the circular plaques are. Occult pogs of
some sort.

I’m not
sure who the black cat under glass might be–Poe’s Black Cat is an obvious
guess.

Panel
5. “King’s Cross” is major railway
station in London.

Ouija
boards were introduced in the early 1890s, but most Ouija boards have the star
to the right of the crescent moon, not to the left, as this one does. (There’s
a very interesting gallery
of Ouija boards. Gads, I love the Web).

Page
33. Panel 2. Campion Bond would seem to have come down in the
world.

Panel
5. “Robin Yaldwyn”
is a ne’er-do-well painter in the book Wistons (1902), written by “Miles Amber.” “Miles
Amber” was the pseudonym of Ellen Cobden Sickert,
wife of the painter Walter Sickert, and Wistons is a roman-à-clef about how bad
Walter Sickert, who Robin Yaldwyn
is an analogue of, treated his wife.

Sickert,
of course, was a part of the Jack the Ripper investigation, something Moore delved into in From
Hell.

In Threepenny Opera Jackie “Tiger” Brown is the
Chief of Police in London
and Macheath’s best friend.

The
photograph on the left is of the peaked cap man who was seen at the scene of
Elizabeth Stride’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Stride murder. The
photograph on the right is of Elizabeth Stride, the Ripper’s third victim.

Panel
7. I don’t know what the straight
razors dated to 1802 are a reference to.

Page
34. Panel 1. I’m unaware of a “Lewis Seymour” who had anything to
do with the Jack the Ripper murders, but “Lewis Seymour” is the protagonist of
George Moore’s A Modern Lover (1883). In the novel Seymour is a Walter Sickert-like
painter who uses women to gain power: "He was the same beautiful, soft
creature, bad only because he had not strength to be good."

Panel
4. “Andrew Norton, the Prisoner of
London” is a reference to Iain Sinclair’s Slow Chocolate Autopsy (1997),
about Norton, who can travel in time but is stuck within the physical confines
of London.

Panel
5. “Incidentally, how was my brother
when you visited him last?”

“He’s well.”

As seen
in Black Dossier, in 1904 (and judging from Mycroft’s words, more
recently than that) Mina visited Sherlock Holmes, who in 1910 has retired to
Sussex Downs to raise bees.

Page
38. Panel 2. The figure on the left, Norton, has a
not-coincidental visual similarity to Iain Sinclair.

The
striking figure in the middle is Boudica (?-60/1 C.E.). Boudica
was a Queen of the Iceni tribe of East Anglia, England, and led an uprising
against the Romans. The historian Cassius Dio
describes Boudica as follows:

In stature she was very tall, in appearance most
terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh; a
great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips; around her neck was a large
golden necklace; and she wore a tunic of divers colours
over which a thick mantle was fastened with a brooch.

(Not
that it should surprise anyone that Kevin O’Neill gets things like this right,
of course)

Page
39. Panel 2. The “George M. Plummer” mentioned on the wanted
poster is a reference to George
Marsden Plummer, Scotland Yard inspector gone
wrong and one of Sexton Blake’s arch-enemies.

Panel
4. “...since Allan and I were in Arkham.”

This
event was described in Black Dossier.

The
“Great Nort–“ is a reference to the Great Northern
Railway, a major British railway company whose London hub was King’s Cross.

Page
40. Panel 2. “Gaslight understudies.”

I
confess to being a little mystified by this. I can see Raffles being described
as an understudy to ArseneLupin–Lupin was, after all, the better Gentleman Thief, as a
character, as a thief, and in story terms. (Maurice Leblanc, Lupin’s creator, was a better writer than E.W. Hornung, Raffles’ creator). But who would Mina be an
understudy to? Van Helsing? Or perhaps to late 20th
century popculture characters like Buffy?

Panel
3. “Coffins at Carfax.”

This is
a reference to the events of Dracula.

“Blood
for oil.”

“Blood
for oil” was the charge leveled at the American government for its involvement
in both wars with Iraq. (Not sure how it applies here).

“Patrick
Keiller mapping the Martians’ crater.”

Patrick Keiller
is a British filmmaker and author best known for his film Robinson in Space
(1997), in which the unseen Robinson tours London. Presumably one of the sites Robinson
sees in the film is one of the craters created by the Martians in their League
v2 attack?

“July
Seventh” and “Paradise backpackers” are references to the Islamic suicide
bombers who killed 52 people on July 7, 2005. Each of the three attacked trains
had recently left King’s Cross St. Pancras railway
station. I’m not sure what “a constellation of cigarette burns on Archer’s
back” is a reference to–the constellation of Sagittarius is “the Archer,” and
“the stars are right” might be a reference to Sagittarius’ alignment on
7/7/2005. Of course, “the stars are right” is a cliche
in cosmic horror fiction.

Panel
6. “Misplaced memorials.”

I trust
one of my British readers can fill me in on what Moore is referring to. Is
there a misplaced memorial at King’s Cross? There are memorials to veterans of
World Wars One and Two–anything else?

“Forgotten
fires.”

I’m
assuming this is a reference to the King’s Cross fire on 18 November 1987,
which killed 31 people in the King’s Cross St. Pancras
station. I’m not particularly sure why this counts as “forgotten”–even I,
American that I am, knew about it. (Is the King’s Cross fire memorial plaque in
the station misplaced somehow?)

“Rimbaud,
Verlaine, lyric grease.”

Arthur Rimbaud
(1854-1891) and Paul
Verlaine (1844-1896) were two of the major French poets of the fin de
siècle. Rimbaud & Verlaine lived for several months in 1872 and 1873 at
8 Royal College Street, which is less than a mile from King’s Cross.

“Boadicea’s
urban legend under platform ten.”

Boadicea
(a.k.a. Boudica) is, according to urban legend,
buried under platform ten of King’s Cross railway station. It was formerly
believed that Boudica’s final battle was fought at
the village of Battle Bridge, on whose site King’s Cross was later built. Boudica’s final battle was elsewhere, but in the world of League
the final battle was at the eventual location of King’s Cross, which is why
Norton sees her on Page 38, Panel 2.

“A
quarter platform over, the franchise express, gathering steam.”

In J.K.
Rowling’s Harry Potter books, the students embark for Hogwarts School of
Wizardry at Platform 9 3/4 in King’s Cross.

Page
41. Panel 1. “Magic revivals, Hyde Park happenings”

Got me.
A reference to the next issue of Century,
possibly.

“David
Litvinov’s ventriloquism”

David Litvinoff was a prominent personality in the late-1960s
London scene. I don’t know what his ventriloquism is a reference to–his
advising Nicholas Roeg on Performance, maybe?

“Jack
the Hat”

Jack McVitie,
a.k.a. “Jack the Hat,” was a notorious London
criminal in the 1950s and 1960s.

Panel
2. I’m going to guess that this
scene, of 1969 London, or something much like it shows up in the next volume of
Century, which is set in late 1960s London.

I’m
sure that a number of these characters are references. 1960s British popculture not being my forte, I’m clueless on almost all
of them, with the exception of RegSmythe’sAndy
Capp.

Page
42. Panel 3. In case it’s unclear: that is Jack Macheath being arrested. The man on the left is Tiger
Brown, mentioned above on Page 33, Panel 6.

Page
45. Panel 1. “...I was once very close to Sinbad.”

As was
seen in Black Dossier.

Panel
3. If the statue is of anything in
particular, I’m unaware of it.

“Karswell” comes from Karswell,
the man who buys Lufford Abbey in Warwickshire in
M.R. James’ “Casting the
Runes.” “Trelawney” is a reference to Dr. Trelawney, the Aleister Crowley analogue in Anthony Powell’s twelve-book
“A Dance to the Music of Time” series. “Stonedene” is
a reference to one “Dr. Oyler,” the other real-life
model for Dr. Trelawney. Dr. Oyler lived in Stonedene at the same time that Anthony Powell had.

Panel
5. “Iliel,
though...the name adds up to eighty-one. A lunar number.”

This is
occult numerology, of which I know nothing.

Page
51. Panel 1. “We’re rather like the Rosicrucians.”

More
than you want to know about them:

In the
early 17th century a group of European individuals began espousing
certain esoteric beliefs through their scientific writings. These individuals,
most of whom were moral and religious reformers, later became known as the Rosenkreuzer, or the Society of Rosicrucians,
although there is no evidence that they ever met as a group. Their beliefs,
which combined mysticism, alchemy, and the sciences, were heavily influenced by
16th century Neoplatonists, including the
German doctor Philippus Paracelsus and the Italian
scholar FranciscusPatritius.
These men and women claimed to be followers of a Christian Rosencreutz
(1378-1484), supposedly a German writer who was credited with having gone to
Asia and been initiated into an occult society, the members of which are
bearers of secret, magical knowledge. His books excited many European
intellectuals when they were published, and led to many individuals calling
themselves “Rosicrucians” and advocating mystic and
Hermetic beliefs. Legend has it that the Rosicrucians
were instrumental in the modernizing of Freemasonry early in the 18th
century.

During
the 18th century various European groups and societies began to
claim possession of Rosicrucian secrets and knowledge and/or descent from the
Society of Rosicrucians. The two most important of
these societies were founded in the 19th century: the SocietasRosicruciana, founded in
1865, and the Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888. The Golden Dawn was
the more influential of the two, with several 20th century writers,
including Aleister Crowley, Arthur Machen, W.B. Yeats, Algernon Blackwood, involved with the
Golden Dawn as members.

Page
55. Panels 2-4. For proper Hindu women, hair–especially in
public–should always be bound up and pinned. Letting loose the hair is an erotic
act. Doing so in public is an act of shamelessness and something a prostitute
would do–or someone beyond caring about social norms. The symbolism of Janni’s act here is potent.

Page
56. Panels 5-6. “The last murder happened on Boxing Day.”

“M-MacHeath
didn’t do the last one? So who...?

“The prostitute’s name was Grace. We
believe she was disemboweled by the 14th Earl of Gurney.”

As mentioned above on Page 13, Panel
6, the 14th Earl of Gurney is a reference to the film The Ruling
Class. In the film Jack Gurney believes himself to be Jack the Ripper. But
there is no prostitute named Grace in the film, and I’ve been unable to
discover what this is a reference to.

Page
57. Panel 3. “Madam, there are certain senile lunatics at the
House of Lords who might do anything.”

A
political reference on Moore’s part, but to what?

Pages
64-65. Compare the events and lyrics
here to the lyrics of “Pirate Jenny,” given above on the notes to Page 26,
Panels 4-7.